All About How I Am Missing My Papa
by lilidelafield
Summary: A KATIYA STORY I am Katiya Mikhailovna Kuryakin, and I am hiding from people who want to kill me and my dedushka (my grandpa). I am six and a half and I just found out that someone killed my new Aunty Claire! This story is set approximately two months after the events portrayed in Of Hearts and Bullets'


I am pretending to be Jenny Walters, but my real name is Katiya Mikhailovna Kuryakin. I am six and a half years old.

I can't tell you where I am living because there are bad people called THRUSH who are trying to find me and my dedushka, and if they find us it would be bad.

Deda has not said so but I know that we might be killed. That is the only thing that would make my papa…he's not really my papa, he's my Uncle Illya, but only if he was scared for us to die would stop Uncle Illya coming to find me.

I know he isn't my papa, but I want to call him that. He said I could call him papa before we said goodbye. He looks like my real papa, but he is different. His eyes are kind, and he doesn't shout. I hate people who shout. It scares me and makes me cry.

My first papa always used to shout when I saw him, and I used to hide outside the door and peep in through the crack. I would see mama crying sometimes, and that made me cry. He was away a lot, and it was mama and me on our own. I liked it better that way until she got sick. I put cold water on her face to try and cool her, but she died after three days and the people who lived in the street put her in a hole in the ground.

After that dedushka sent someone to get me and I lived with him for few days until papa Illya found me. He was pretending to be my real papa, and everyone thought he was him. But when I first saw him, I could see that papa Illya didn't have any angry lines around his eyes. He didn't frown or get cross like my other papa did, he couldn't be my real papa. I liked this papa much better.

I later found out because deda told me that he was my papa's little brother. Then papa Illya got sick, very sick like mama had been. Water was pouring off his face and he was shivering and sometimes he was sort of sleeping, other times he was sort of awake, but talking, saying things that didn't make any sense. Sometimes it would be in English, but a lot of what he said was in Russian or Ukrainian. I tried to be brave, as mama had said I should always try to be, but it wasn't easy. I wanted to cry every time I was allowed to sit with papa Illya. I was so scared that he would die too and be put in a hole in the ground like she was.

I want to say that I always knew he would get well. I think I said so then, but I didn't really think so. I was so scared that he would die and I would lose him. But he did get well. We were just getting to be just like a real papa and his little girl, when dedushka told me we had to go and hide. My first papa's friends had killed him and they were now looking for dedushka because he had run away from them so that he could look after me. He said we had to go and hide, have different names, wear different clothes, have our hair different, things just to try to stop these bad people from finding us. I didn't mind until they said papa Illya was not allowed to come. Him being with us would be more dangerous so he had to stay behind with his friend Mister Solo. Then I really did cry.

I can write to him sometimes though. I call him papa in my letters, and when I end the letter, I have to write my name as Jenny instead of Katiya. He writes back to me, and ends the letter as Your Papa. I love that!

I got really excited because in one of his letters, he told me that he had met a really lovely lady called Claire. He said she came from a country called Scotland. He said it is a country with lots of mountains and cold, rainy weather, and the men even wear skirts! A special kind of skirt he said, called a kilt. He put in a picture of a man from Scotland wearing his kilt, and it is beautiful. I think my papa would look really good in a kilt.

He said he and Claire were going to get married, and then I would have an aunt, and if I liked her, she could be my new mama, when I meet her one day. I was looking forward to papa writing my next letter and telling me all about the wedding, and what Claire wore, who went and the things they ate. Then someone came to the house. I think it was one of papa Illya's friends, people who work for the same boss. The man talked to deda for a few minutes and then he went. He was dressed like a man who fixes leaky pipes, but he didn't touch any pipes. That night before I went to bed, deda told me that the man had brought some bad news for me from papa. He said it was something that I would not want to have to read in a letter. Then he explained that my new Aunty Claire was dead. That she had been shot by someone with a big gun right on the same day she and papa were married.

I never told papa this in any of my letters, but I cried all night long when I found out about Claire being killed. Papa had told me about her, and how she was so clever and kind, and how she made him very happy. I hate to think that papa is all alone again. He has his friend Mister Solo but not any family. I have my dedushka that I can go to when I am scared and he hugs me. Who hugged papa after Aunty Claire was killed? Who hugs papa when he is alone or afraid? Now I know that papa is always going to be alone unless one day dedushka and I are allowed to go and be with him, I will be scared for him. I really miss my new papa. He looks like he doesn't smile a lot, and he doesn't really, not with his mouth, but his eyes are kind and they smile all the time. I really hope he does manage to stop these THRUSH people one day. Then I can come home again and I can be with my new papa again. My own Papa Illya. And he won't be alone any more.


End file.
